


Mulan: Make a Man Out of Me

by 2theB2theE2theA



Category: Mulan (1998)
Genre: Ancient China, Disney, F/M, Inspired by Mulan (1998), Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 13:46:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16064378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2theB2theE2theA/pseuds/2theB2theE2theA
Summary: Mulan has joined the Chinese army in its efforts to repel the Huns from China. Dressed as a young man, she initially feels like an outsider, a burden to the army and a let-down to her family. But then her alter ego, Fa Ping, is given a second chance. Can she successfully pass as a 'he'? Can Fa Ping win the respect of his comrades, and eventually Li Shang? Can he keep his true identity hidden before all is lost, forever? [cue dramatic orchestral interlude]





	Mulan: Make a Man Out of Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys, this is something I wrote a few years ago now. I loved imagining a woman in what was traditionally a man's world, and watching a man have his judgement challenged by an underdog nobody expected to succeed. If I were to completely rewrite this story, I would make it more subtle and more daring at once, and bring it up to date with my current opinions. 
> 
> This shouldn't be a tale of a delicate woman trying to fit in with brutish men. 
> 
> It should deal with issues of gender and attraction in a more fluid way, with fewer expectations of what constitutes 'a man' or 'a woman', or who should be attracted to whom.
> 
> And much more! But for a story that will probably never be finished, it's been amazing fun to write. Hope you enjoy :) please leave comments if anything in the writing jumped out at you!

“Not like that. What are you, a bunch of little housewives?”

The men training are laborious and painfully slow. Li Shang can hardly watch as they heave and grapple with the task, their incompetence so obvious he can almost smell it. He certainly has a job on his hands. He runs his hand over his head and sighs, frustration building in his stomach.

“Faster! Faster! You must learn to go faster than that. Push yourself! If you don’t die now, you’ll surely die later, so act like you’re fighting for your life. Fighting for China!

God help us,” he added, quietly. “What would father do? Short of literally whipping them into shape?”

He notices one young man in particular. Delicately structured, fine-featured boy. Seems intelligent enough, but right now looks as though he might keel over. Li Shang has seen him in this state before, and though he hates the thought of cutting his troops by even one soldier, he thinks he will have to tell him to leave soon. The lad is failing almost every task: he can’t break through things, wield a greatsword or run up hills with water, and the rest of the men seemed to have taken a disliking to him from the very first day. Shang makes up his mind. The boy must return home. The army cannot carry soldiers who lag behind.

“You’re through, boy,” he tells Ping, who immediately looks as though he wants to argue, to tell Li Shang that he can do this.

“No. Don’t argue with your captain. Go home, we can’t afford to carry you.”

“Please, sir. I have to stay, I can’t go back. I need to be here, I can get stronger, I will help in any way I can! Please let me stay!”

Pleading never helps. His own father had told him, to ready him for the position: "Do not be moved by their pleas and cries. Grow your armour while you’re wearing it. Be firm, and remember: you are in charge of them. They have no power over you."

“Enough! You leave now. Do not follow us,” growls Li Shang, trying not to feel guilty as he turns Ping harshly away. Ping’s face crumples, his eyes gleaming with tears. Shang turns his back. He doesn’t need to see Ping’s hopeless, helpless eyes fixed on him, willing him to change his mind. “We move out before the next hour,” he barks to his lieutenant, who takes one look at his face and decides to remove himself as far as he is able from the storm brewing there. Shang fiddles with one of the fastenings of his plate armour, irritated. He can’t believe he has shown weakness already, guilt and regret for the boy. Why? He was an extremely poor soldier-in-training. He had the wrong build for it, too soft, too small and slight. He had resolve, but no muscle that Shang noticed. He bruised easily, and although he said they didn’t hurt, those he earned by sparring with the other men bloomed like autumnal roses under his pale skin. Perhaps it was this determination, insisting he was fine, swearing that he would fight again after being beaten badly by the others, offering to help with the chores nobody else wanted to do, that made Shang feel he had done wrong by sending him home. Shang thinks now that maybe he should have let him stay, just to help with the cooking, perhaps… But no. He has gone, and the army is stronger without him. Shang puts Ping out of his mind and prepares to leave before the hour is up.

Ping, however, has steeled himself. He has made a pact with himself that no matter what Li Shang says, he will always need as many soldiers as he can get, and plans to plead his case again, no matter how angry this may make him.

“I am not much worse than Ling,” he says contemplatively into the cold mid-afternoon, his breath making tiny clouds before him and then melting into the air. “Li Shang needs all of us. China needs all of us. Every last sword, every last arrow—” And as he whispers to himself, Ping spies the tip-top of the high pole, peeking through the tops of the trees a little distance away.

The pole is a sheer, sharp, slippery piece of wood. To climb more than five feet up it has proved treacherously difficult. Standing at the bottom, those horrible weights hanging from his wrists, Ping and the other new soldiers had felt only disbelief and despair at the prospect of trying to climb it and reach the arrow at the top.

“This represents discipline,” Li Shang had said as he looped one of the gigantic weights over Ping’s wrist, “and this represents strength.” He dropped the other onto his other wrist. Ping promptly fell over, unable to stand straight, the sheer weight of ‘discipline’ and ‘strength’ dragging him down. Needless to say, he had failed to retrieve the arrow, and walked away massaging his wrists and cursing his lack of strength and discipline.

Now, though, Ping has a plan. Rather than pure strength, he will use discipline to reach the top and show Li Shang what he can do. He pushes himself eagerly to his feet and runs in the direction of the pole and the arrow.

Shang has postponed the moving of the camp until tomorrow, as a hard frost is setting in and the high passes will be unthinkably slippery. He resigns himself to brooding anxiously in his tent, hands tucked into his jacket for warmth. He watches as the fire sends a column of smoke through the narrow gap in the roof. He needs to see some improvement in his troops, this is foremost on his mind. Otherwise he will fail his father and risk bearing the shame of losing China to the Huns, if he lives that long. He hopes he won’t. He would rather die in battle than face his father’s disappointment, wondering why his son was unable to uphold the family tradition of great soldiers and great men.

The sun is beginning to sink, turning the sky to a soupy orange, when Shang hears a commotion outside. Dread clotting in his blood, he jumps to his feet, his hand flying to his greatsword. Whipping the flap of the tent open, he ducks into the freezing air and sees his men huddled around the tall pole, staring at its summit. Shang walks closer, not daring to believe his eyes. It can’t be… But yes, the closer he comes, the more he cannot doubt that it is Ping at the top, beaming and holding the arrow in his triumphant fist. He raises it above his head, and Shang’s men are cheering despite themselves, shocked into admiration.

“Come down, Ping,” calls Shang. He thoughts are confused. Should he be livid with the insolent Ping? He had, after all, been dismissed only a few hours ago and was under strict orders not to return. But, thinks Shang, if he had dismissed him, then Ping was not really under any obligation to obey orders from Shang at all. He’s got a nerve, thinks Shang in surprise, and watches with mixed feelings as Ping slithers down the pole, landing nimbly like a cat. He approaches Shang and offers him the arrow. Shang can see the imprint of the shaft on Ping’s hand as he takes it and looks into Ping’s hopeful eyes. Shang can’t bring himself to chastise Ping. After all, none of the others had managed to climb more than a few feet off the ground.

“Welcome back, Ping,” he sighs, a smile on his lips despite his best efforts to conceal it. “I want to see you improve with the others. If you can’t keep up, cook will find plenty of work for you to do, believe me.”

“Thank you, sir. I will not let you down. Thank you, captain, thank you!” Ping’s face displays a glow of success.

“Everyone, to your tents. We have a long day ahead. We need to keep up our strength. You, too, Ping.”

“Yes, sir!”

This time it is Shang who watches Ping’s back as the lad heads to his tent, a new bounce in his feet, his hair in its top knot bobbing as he goes. Shang is fond of him; Ping has an incurable optimism and enthusiasm which refuses to be dampened by the reality of the oncoming war. He just doesn’t give up.

A captain’s eyes can tell when a man is at optimal fitness, when he is ready to spring into battle, still with that thirst for holding his sword aloft and killing the Huns like he had practised. It saddens Shang. He has learned from experience, though he has only fought in two battles before, that this enthusiasm only lasts until after the battle. He has stood in silence, supposing he was watching the men’s souls drifting up into the red sky, guilt and fury coursing through his body. There is something in Ping’s face that tells him Ping might not ever be the same boy again after seeing blood on the floor, and realising that it had been he who had put it there. His face is oddly pure, too kind to kill. Shang drags his eyes from the sky and returns to his tent, heavy with thought.

The change in Ping’s performance in training after the day with the arrow is incredible. Li Shang watches him with growing pride and tries not to look as though he is completely mystified by Ping’s transformation. The other men are sparked by his enthusiasm and push themselves harder because of it. Shang’s little army is progressing at an unprecedented rate, and Shang lies down each night exhausted, filled with more hope than he has felt in a long time, trying to figure out what he will teach them all tomorrow before he falls into a deep, deep sleep.

Every day more cities fall to Shan Yu and more towns are razed to the ground, timber blackened and crumbling over the charred remains of China’s people. The Emperor is pacing in his palace, his council muttering and staring. They clutch their effigies of Shui-Khan in one hand to protect against evil, while the other never strays far from a dagger. Men are recruited and sent into battle by the thousands without proper training. Old men and boys alike lie bloody in the snow, and Shan Yu gazes across the fields of bodies, filled with wonder at his great power.

Finally, Shang decides that they should join the fight. The men are silent, but look at each other with the glee of little boys off to play wars. They roll up their sleeping mats, take down the tents and turf the fires. Jittery, they snake off into the mountains, leaving nothing behind but soft grains of spilled rice and ghostly-pale patches of dead grass.

The first town they come to assures them that they are on the right path. Skeletons of houses sag under a chilling North wind. The snow is slush from the heat of the fire and black with soot. Ash blows like petals through burnt-out walls. The place is destroyed. Not a thing survived the attack. Huns had crept in during the night and lit the hay barns, elated at the sight of the villagers stumbling out of their houses, choking on smoke, trying to put out the flames. Doors were blasted out by the furnace heat coming from inside, as the Huns had delivered shimmering firebrands down chimneys and through windows. Li Shang’s men, though they try to hide it under bravado, shiver as they sense the unmistakable presence of death. Shang watches as their eyes grow large and round with the sad sight of those blackened shells of houses. They huddle together like frightened children. Shang has to clear his throat before ordering that they search the village for survivors.

Just over the hill on which the village stood are fields littered with corpses. They wear the Chinese armour. Here and there is the standard of the Emperor, tattered, spat upon, bled onto. The men lie still clutching their swords with hands contorted and stiff with ice. Yao is the first to discover this scene, and his gasps bring his fellows running, then pulling up sharp at the sight. Shang thinks he is prepared for anything, until he stands at the front, looking down at his father’s men, the men under his own father’s command, staring into the sky with regretful eyes. It is like a blow to the stomach, no, more: a battering ram to the chest. He wishes he were numb. No, dead. Like his father.

There lies General Li, with snow to covering his wounds like a healing blanket. Shang kneels to him, careful not to step on another man’s fallen body as he does so. His face speaks his pain and his men recede, silently, to continue the vain search for survivors.

Shang is alone. And it is so quiet. The wind has stopped, he thinks, vaguely. No more snow. No voices. Only me. Oh, father. You are gone too? What is it like? Is mother well? Does she watch me while I sleep? For I have had terrible dreams, father, I dream of you leaving me alone in a vast, white, open land; no sound, no colour. It is a dullness that drains my heart of the colours of my childhood. I wake up in a sweat. I have twisted the blanket off me, and my sword lies unsheathed beside me, to ward off the emptiness. Once I even cut myself on its silver edge. I think now that I was watching for the Huns. I would watch for hours on that empty, nothingness plain while the cold stabbed me through the chest, to find a Hun, and kill him; to end him before he found you. I did that, father. Guide me, and give me your blessing. With it I will find the one who did it, I will seek him and all others out, and slay every one, until you smile on me, and we see each other again. Until then, father, goodbye.

Shang does not speak aloud, but lets one single tear fall. Then he gets up, wipes his nose with his sleeve, and walks away. He does not look back.

Ping is a soldier. A hardened soldier, one who has survived battle after dreadful battle and come out the other side with scars on his body and mind. That’s how he feels, anyway. But instead, he is barely making it through the snow crisping on the path between the mountains. The soles of his boots seem to be made of silk: every stone pinches his aching feet, the icy ground numbing them until he stumbles and almost falls. His pack weighs two tonnes, he is sure, and he bears against a screeching wind. His teeth chatter. His nose runs until he gives up stemming the flow and resigns himself to the grime and grimness shared by the other soldiers, who have long since disregarded appearances, heavier things weighing on their minds as well as their backs.

Li Shang also finds the going hard, although he is used to travelling the rough terrain. However, his father will not leave him; dogs him rather, as he treks over the narrow passes. He shakes himself to clear his head. When he isn’t possessed by torturous memories of his father, he is worrying about his men. They are struggling with the journey. He has been watching Ping in particular as he hunches and crunches his light way through the snow, a permanent frown of concentration hanging on his forehead. He has known Ping for a few months now. He supposes the lad is over seventeen or so, but his face is still so smooth, so unmarked by hair or acne or blemish. Must be a late bloomer, Shang decides, and dismisses his curiosity. But it won’t be banished. Somehow, he doesn’t quite understand why, Ping is one in one thousand. He is not the strongest, nor the bravest, nor even the kindest; but he has an honesty about him which mystifies Shang. He is shy. He will not take off his armour before the other men. Insecurities? wonders Shang. Everybody has them. Perhaps an unsightly scar? It is Ping’s own business, of course. But Ping himself is so scrupulously neat and compact that Shang doubts these speculations. Then what? Must be a secret, concludes Shang, aware he has given his soldier too much individual thought.

He glances behind. Ping is looking up at the sky, now, frowning, as usual. His face is searching for something, and Shang watches, first with inquisitiveness, then with alarm, as Ping’s face contorts in shock and surprise. “Ambush!” shouts Ping, his sharp cry echoing off the steep walls of the mountain pass either side. Shang, looking wildly around, sees masked men in white everywhere. An arrow cracks through the pale sky and brushes Shang’s armour. He blinks, trying to focus. React! his brain screams at him, react!

Finally, he jerks into action. Flinging his sword out of its scabbard, he shouts to his men, who are panicking and presenting themselves as targets—

“Get to cover! Against the rock! Flatten yourselves! Prepare to fight, but stay down! Stay down!”

Like wolf-worried sheep they obey, diving towards the poor cover of the rock face. Some have their swords out but many are still blinking, stumbling. Soon, though, they are preparing the cannon for a return fire. The arrows are showering down from a ledge ten metres above them and to the left. To fire the cannons, Shang’s men must go back into the open, putting them at risk of being shot— but what choice do they have? If they do not retaliate they will be picked off. Losing men will lower the spirits of the rest.

They cannot have a weak leader. So he helps to carry the cannon out of the small wagon they brought with them onto the flat rise, in plain view of the enemy archers. Shang realises that three of his men are already dead, killed by the distinctive Hun arrows, fletched with crane feathers. Shang orders Ping to help him move another cannon into the open. The wind is blowing full force, whipping up the snow and ice, hurling it into their faces and nudging the Hun arrows slightly off course. Ping is ice-white but appears calm and shrewd. He doesn’t seem to see the bodies of his dead fellow soldiers, but moves languidly through the snow, picking his way through the fallen arrows, determined not to look up.

Shang orders him to wait as the cannons are aimed, then gives the order to fire. They explode, sending shot cracking and sighing through the mountains. Cascades of snow create clouds on the archers’ ledge and buy Shang enough time to get the cannon loaded again. However, when next he shouts “Open fire!”, out of the corner of his eye he sees Ping’s cannon at a wider angle than the others, and wants to stop the fire, but can’t, and Ping’s cannon is fired. A waste! A waste of shot, he berates Ping.

And then he notices two things. The first is that Ping’s wide shot has hit the overhanging snow above the Huns’ ledge and caused an avalanche, burying his enemy and cutting off fire. The second is that a moment after firing the cannon, Ping is hit by a Hun arrow. He gives a high little gasp, and, putting his hands to his stomach, he removes his one to find it dripping with blood. He shudders, and goes limp. Shang might just owe Ping his life. He calls urgently for Huiliang, the medic. He orders, begs the man to do all he can for Ping.

Huiliang erects a tent on the ground and has Ping laid down inside it. Shang feels, strangely, as though he will lose his father all over again if Ping dies. He doesn’t know why, and wishes he could explain his attachment to Ping.

Ping has talked to him about the girls back home, which seems to be a subject of embarrassment. Finally, he admitted that he would like to meet a girl who was different from the others, one who spoke her mind. Shang had argued hotly at first, not understanding why Ping might find an intelligent girl attractive; but the more he explained and gave his reasons, the more Shang was won over. Ping had a charming way of winning arguments. He was a clever and witty conversationalist.

After an agonisingly long time of waiting and dreading and hoping, Huiliang emerges gravely from his tent. He does most things gravely.

“Shang,” he addresses the captain. “Ping is… Badly injured. He— well— uh…” The doctor has turned slightly pink.

“What’s the matter?” asks Shang quickly. The man shrugs.

“See for yourself, Captain,” he says, and nods in the direction of the tent.

Much bemused, Shang walks to the tent, glancing back around at Huiliang before ducking inside.

It is filled with a soft, papery light. After the glare of the snow outside, it is a relief to his eyes. He smells herbs, musty and thick. Under a blanket, eyes shut, a look of calm on his face, lies Ping. As much as he wishes not to disturb the sleeping patient, Huiliang’s strange expression enters his mind again, and he touches the blanket softly with his fingertips.

“Ping,” he says softly, “Ping? How are you?”

Ping’s eyelids lift and his pupils dilate slowly.

“Captain.”

“How are you, Ping? No— at ease. You are injured, though I hope you are not in too much pain.”

“Not much, Captain, thank you.”

“Is anything else the matter?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Captain?”

“Huiliang seemed perplexed.”

“Please, help me to sit up. I can explain my actions with the cannon, Captain.”

Shang helps Ping to sit up. He does so stiffly, the bandage around his middle stained red already from the wound. But Shang’s eyes alight on Ping’s chest. And then his mouth, then eyes… Then those lips, those feminine, full lips. His gaze rests again on Ping’s chest. It is not flat. Those gentle hills are not muscle. They are breasts.

“Ping— what is going on? Are you… A woman? Have you been lying to me? All this time, have you been lying to your Captain? Ping? Answer me!”

Ping looks like he wishes the arrow had struck his heart. He lowers his head.

“Ping! Answer your captain! I have been deceived, I know a woman when I see one.”

Shang’s face is as dark as Ping’s is pale. His mouth is thin and his lips are snarling with displeasure at Ping, who cowers behind her hair. She hugs her blanket to cover her chest, wincing as the wound twinges at the slight movement.

“What is your name? Your real name, woman,” asks Shang, his voice like thunder.

His face is very close to hers and she shrinks back.

“What is it?” he bellows suddenly.

“Fa Mulan, Captain.”

“Fa Mulan. Not Fa Ping, but Fa Mulan. And why are you here, Mulan? Why did you lie to your Captain? Deceive us all?”

“Please, Li Shang, my father was too old to go to war again. When I heard about the conscription I was determined to take his place. He has fought in many battles already, and was injured. He cannot walk without a stick, so I stole his armour. Let the blame rest solely on me, it is not his fault!”

“Mulan is of no interest to me and Ping does not exist. Do you have any idea what kind of price this crime demands? No? Well, I’ll tell you: deceivers, women masquerading as soldiers, are put to death.” Shang waits for Mulan to beg him to spare her life. She is still and silent but does not ask for mercy.

Her face contorts as her injury twinges, and Shang remembers, realises, that he still owes Ping, or Mulan, his life. Shang is a man of honour and of his word, and he swallows down bitter anger before stating calmly and clearly that Mulan will be provided with her army uniform, a horse and three days’ worth of food, and left to make her own way home.

“My debt to you is repaid. If you follow us we will treat you as a deserter and shoot you. You will be afforded no more mercy than you deserve. We break camp tomorrow. When I rise at dawn, I will expect to find you gone. If I see you again, no praying or woman’s wailing will save you.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Do you understand what I am telling you?”

“Yes, Captain.”

"You understand we are leaving you? That you will be shot down on sight if you try to follow us?”

“Yes, Captain, I understand.”

Mulan is almost indifferent! What is she made of? Steel? Should she not throw herself before him and weep and moan? She is a woman after all. Women are weak, thinks Shang; but he is confused. To hide his bemusement he strides out of the tent to an atmosphere of impressive silence.

“How is Ping?” asks one soldier, cautiously. The rest are crowded together, muttering. Shang steps right into the soldier’s face. There is a significant height difference. The soldier wilts before his gaze.

“Listen carefully, all of you! Ping is a liar. Ping is leaving before dawn tomorrow. Ping is a cheater, a woman, and if you ever see her again after today, she is a dead woman. Understood?”


End file.
